Join us for a screening of the newly-restored Style Wars: The Original Hip Hop Documentary, the filmic record of a golden age of youthful creativity that exploded into the world from a city in crisis. Introduced by producer Henry Chalfant and artist Jane Dickson. The screening will be proceeded by Dickson's short film City Maze.

Free admission and bar (donations suggested)

Scene from Style Wars

Directed by Tony Silver and produced by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant, Style Wars was awarded the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the 1983 Sundance Film Festival, and is regarded as the indispensable document of New York Street culture of the early ’80s. Style Wars captured the look and feel of New York’s ramshackle subway system as graffiti writers’ public playground, battleground and spectacular artistic canvas. Opposing them by every means possible were Mayor Edward Koch, the police, and the New York Transit Authority. Meanwhile MCs, DJs and B-boys rocked the city with new sounds and new moves and street corner breakdance battles evolved into performance art. New York’s legendary kings of graffiti and b-boys own a special place in the hip hop pantheon. Style Wars has become an emblem of the original, embracing spirit of hip hop as it reached out across the world from underground tunnels, uptown streets, clubs and playgrounds.

Jane Dickson’s City Maze was a cardboard installation at Fashion Moda in September 1980 where, with the collaboration of local graffiti artists and school children, she created a maze installation that had special appeal for the youth of the neighborhood. City Maze is a short film documenting the installation.

Presented by the Bronx Museum Community Advisory Council.

1040 Lounge is made possible with support from The David Rockefeller Fund. Beer has been provided by Bronx Brewery. Generous support for Community and Outreach programs is provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Booth Ferris Foundation.